The backside of the US farm-labor market is hidden away in the mountains of Northern Mexico. Recruiters in the pay of Manpower of the Americas scour the dirt poor roads for workers to come to North Carolina, itself hired by 650 farmers associated as the North Carolina Growers Association. To get the recruiters’ attention bribes have helped — to the tune of $800 or so, about 100 hours of work at the prevailing wage.

When the Ohio based Farm Labor Organizing Committee announced to the mountain folk they would no longer have to pay the bribes one of the chief organizers was beaten to death in the union offices.

6,000 workers were sent to North Carolina by Manpower of the Americas alone. When the water is sprayed over the cucumbers, strawberries, beans and squash, a lot more dirt than just field dirt is being washed away. In all the yammering from the anti-immigrant right about criminal border jumpers we never hear about the criminal supply chains that keep us in our clean, cheap, healthy produce. This is no way to treat our Guest Workers.

Guest Workers In Bondage